SWIRC

A Brief Description:

SWIRC (Available): a high throughput wide-field IR camera optimized for YJH giving a wavelength range of ~0.9µm to ~1.8µm and a FOV of 5.12' x 5.12'. SWIRC remains the only IR imager at the MMT during the periods MMIRS is at the Magellan Observatory. It is a PI instrument, contact is Warren Brown. For instructions on how to propose to use SWIRC please see here.

The Fundamental Capabilities:

Quantity

FOV

5.12 x 5.12 arcminutes

Wavelength range

Y (1.02um), J (1.2 um), H (1.6um)

Pixel scale

0.15 "/pix

Further Information:

The SAO Widefield InfraRed Camera (SWIRC) was designed with the goal to be a quickly delivered, wide FOV IR imager with minimum optical elements to give the MMT YJH ability with very high throughput. The instrument was proposed in May 2003 and successfully commissioned at the MMT just over 12 months later. The only trade-off for speed of completion was to sacrifice K-band capability by not including an internal, cold Lyot stop. The instrument is mounted at the f/5 focus without the imaging corrector optics as the dewar window acts as the field flattening lens. SWIRC has three science filters and one dark slide giving it an observing range of ~0.9μm to ~1.8μm. The instrument uses a 2048 x 2048 Hawaii-II detector with a plate scale of 0.15”/pixel to fully sample the best seeing at the MMT site over the 5.12’ x 5.12’ FOV.